Brockton High School - Brocktonia Yearbook (Brockton, MA)

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HISTORIANS , . . 6 4 .K .3 ' I JEAN FRELLICK HARRY RICH I5-if Y MARY PITARO SAMUEL PIZZA 9

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CLASS ORATION A cHALLENaE-By Joseph riohefty ln considering the various aspects of the present European war, one may naturally ask, Well, what has it all to do with me? l-low is it likely to affect the U. S? The average American does not see in the present struggle an imminent threat to democracy, When our country entered the First World War, we thought that our soldiers were fighting to make the world safe for democracy, the events of the past few years have proved how wrong we were, The result in Europe has been the destruction of democratic governments like our own in countries where the people had an ideal, a desire for a better life, for self-gov- ernment, but, worn out by years of poverty and distress, they welcomed any change, even dictatorship. Despite this fact, it remains that whatever the out- come of the conflict, there is sure to be a resulting chaos which will affect our nation, to the point where the freedom of the individual will be imperilled. Its defense rests on us. Time passes quickly and brings with each age many new conceptions of human betterment, some good, others necessarily evil. lt is difficult to dis- tinguish between the two, for oftentimes they resemble each other so closely that to separate one from the other requires discriminating thought, but it is easier not to think, The present period leads one to the belief that today, more than ever before, we live in a complex world, The necessity of evaluation of ideas is paramount, its place in modern life must never be minimized. The tendency toward the unreasoning acceptance of statements is our deepest pitfall, we are all too prone to nod yes to every statement made authoritatively on the radio, or to accept the policy of a political party, without thought or consideration, in time this inertia may sound the death-knell of democracy. ln achieving the present high standard of living, Americans have sacrificed many things, among them the habit of individual thinking, ln focusing our attention on our immediate concerns, we fail to recognize the significance of seemingly unimportant events, which, given time to mature, may strangle our culture and destroy our very livelihood. There has sprung up in our country a group of self-appointed reformers, pro- fessional patriots, who consider it their sacred duty to save America from itself. That they may accomplish this noble end, they gird up their loins in the stars and stripes, conceal their bigotry and ignorance in a flow of patriotic verbiage, and parade the land with shouts of America for Americans. Their weapons are name-calling and the glittering generality, their targets those who realize and assert that America is not perfect. These misguided zealots jump to the conclusion that anyone seen in conversation with a believer in these sinister panaceas is himself connected with them, Decatur's sentiment, Our country, right or wrong, is their Bible. Moreover, they think that the freedom of the Constitution is being used as a shield for subversive activity. To be sure, eternal vigilance is the price of democracy, but let us not confuse vigilance with blind- ness to our own shortcomings. Yet these organizations, in many cases where they considered themselves most patriotic indenying the rights of free speech and free press to certain alien groups or in disenfranchising the Negro, were surely as un-American as the very groups they persecuted. In their zeal, they have forgotten what follows the abrogation of the Bill of Rights, they have ll